Exploring the Relationship Between Innovation Capability, Total Quality Management and SMEs Performance in Electric Fan Industry of Pakistan: Moderating Effect of Relational Learning

Abstract

Purpose – The main objective of this paper is to simultaneously determine the moderating role of relational learning in the relationship between Innovation Capability, Total Quality Management and SMEs Performance. This study attempts to expand the insights by determining these relationships in the context of a rapidly liberalizing and developing economy; Pakistan. By conducting this research with Pakistani data, the authors can assess whether the relationship between these three strategic resources shows systematic differences to those in developed economies.Design/methodology/approach – The authors of this study utilized the data collected through survey method in Electric Fan Industry of Pakistan. Well established scales were adopted from past research in order to measure the constructs used in the study. Structural equation modeling technique was used to test the hypotheses of the study. 239 fan manufacturing firms have been included in the sample. The authors used Smart PLS version 3 for data analysis.Findings – The findings revealed that relational learning moderates the relationship between predictor and criterion variables. Contrary to the previous findings, no significant relationship between Innovation Capability and SME Performance was found to exist; however, there existed a positively significant relationship between total quality management and SME performance.Research limitations/implications – Owing to the cross-sectional time frame that the study follows, it does not infer any causality. Having been limited to only fan manufacturing industry, the study calls for further research in different industry/country perspectives.Practical implications – The study highlights policy building prospects for Pakistani government based on the principles of innovation capability and quality enhancement through collaborating with business networks and exploring the potential of relational learning to help improve overall SMEs performance.Originality/value – This study contributes to the growing body of literature on SMEs-level innovation, TQM and relational learning in developing economies like Pakistan.

Role of Industry 5.0 in leveraging the Business Performance: Investigating Impact of Shared-Economy on Firms’ Performance with Intervening Role of i5.0 Technologies

“…We focused on SMEs to promote shared economy and TBL due to various reasons such as follows. SMEs has great importance for the economic growth of a nation which is defined in different ways based on certain criteria for each country such as sales volume, personnel count, and assets’ worth (Alkhoraif et al, 2019; Haroon & Shariff, 2016; Rowley, 2008; Waheed & Zhang, 2022). We followed the definition of Alkhoraif et al (2019) who explained SMEs as a business entity with a workforce of 999 people and annual revenue of three billion RMB for the Chinese market.…”

“…The aim to focus on SMEs is because of less concentration by the experts and practitioners over the past decades, especially in terms of shared economy, TBL, and Industry 5.0 aspects. The literature is witnessed on the substance of SMEs for the organization and has been known as the imperative facilitators for a nation’s economies (Haroon & Shariff, 2016). SMEs contribute to the nation’s GDP and support to condense the rate of unemployment (Alkhoraif et al, 2019; van de Vrande et al, 2009).…”

Total Quality Management and Employee Performance among Motorcycle Dealers: Basis for TQM Initiatives

“…Total quality management was introduced in Japan in early 1980s; it is a management approach that endeavor to improve the quality and productive capacity of business organizations. The following decade saw total quality management becoming increasingly popular in organizations, where this management approach was adopted and implemented with an emphasis on continuous customer satisfaction and improved organization performance (Haroon & Shariff, 2016). Total quality management is seen as a preferable way to differentiate their entrepreneurial activities in the hope of achieving a better outcome in an increasingly competitive environment (Sule et al, 2017).…”

Enhancing SMEs Performance through Supply Chain Collaboration and moderation of Supply Chain Technology Implementation

“…Globally the measurement of performance is not easy through solely supply chain, therefore; collaboration is a vital success factor for SC partnership. A large number of studies have measured the financial and non-financial firm performance (FM) of small-medium enterprises (Haroon & Shariff, 2016;Hassan, Nawaz, Shaukat and Hassan, 2014). Furthermore, Sheikh, Hasnu, and Khan (2016) found a significant positive relationship between HR strategies and SMEs financial and nonfinancial firm performance in Pakistan.…”